Bohus fortress is of course the reason why the Swedish province Bohuslän carries the same name. Known since 1308, and due to its location right in the middle of the historical Nordic borders, it has been besieged 14 times by Swedes, Norwegians and Danes – a Nordic record – but the fortress has never been [...]
Carlsten Fortress - the Protector of Marstrand! Up until the peace at Roskilde in 1658 Marstrand belonged to Denmark-Norway. After the peace the Swedish King Karl X Gustav visited Marstrand and decided to improve the smaller fortifications built by the Norwegians. This is also why it was named Karlsten. Shortly thereafter in 1677 a Norwegian [...]
The history of Thorskog started already in 1249 when the Norwegian King Haakon Haakonsson the older and Birger Jarl sat on Torskebacke (the Norwegian name of Thorskog) and agreed on the eternal peace between Norway and Sweden. The eternal peace did not last and it would take a few hundred years until Bohuslän and Thorskog [...]
Hoby Kulle Manor outside Karlshamn in the southern province of Blekinge was created in what is called “enskiftet”, an agricultural reform that lead to more connected and workable land compared to Sweden’s earlier scattered farmland in village communities. The estate Hoby Kulle was created by Circuit Judge Sven Emanuel Trädgårdh in 1807 and he turned [...]
Johannishus Estate is a vast one, stretching 32 kilometres from north to south and encompasses some 8250 hectares. It is situated in the very south of Sweden in the county of Blekinge. During the 1670s, Swedish Admiral, Count and Royal Councillor (a form of Privy Councillor) Hans Wachtmeister af Johannishus (1641-1714) worked devotedly in order [...]
Skärva Manor, outside Karlskrona in Blekinge, was built by Shipbuilder Fredrik Henrik af Chapman. Af Chapman was ordered by King Gustav III to Karlskrona where he worked from 1782-1793. His orders were to take over the shipyard and develop the Swedish Fleet. He is credited as the world’s first person to apply scientific methods to [...]
Eketorp is an old ring-fort from the Iron Age situated on the island of Öland on the south-east coast of Sweden. The original keep was built around the year 400 AD during a period when the inhabitants had close relationships with the Roman Empire. A theory is that these castles were a place where people [...]
Solliden Palace on the island of Öland was built by Queen Victoria, who had drawn her inspiration from Swedish doctor Axel Munthe’s Italian villa San Michele on Capri. Victoria was plagued with bronchial problems and escaped to the milder climates of Öland in the hope of relief. “You can breathe here”, the Queen is said [...]
On the western shore of Sweden’s second largest island, Öland, Borgholm castle guarded the entrance to Sweden. Today, the ruins leave no visitor untouched and most are overwhelmed by the location and sheer size of the castle when they visit. 900 years ago a defensive keep was built at Borgholm. Only a hundred years later [...]
The Swedish “fideikomiss” derives from the Latin “fideicommissum” but in English property law it is more commonly known as an “entailed estate”. As early as 1686, a law was enacted that made it possible to keep larger properties together by not dividing them during inheritance. This has meant that collections of historical, cultural and scientific [...]
